Tag: ISIS
In the long term…
Proceedings kicked off at Thursday’s Middle East Institute conference with a panel on A Middle East in Flux: Risks and Opportunities. Moderating was peacefare’s Daniel Serwer, presiding over a star-studded panel consisting of Juan Cole, professor at the University of Michigan, Robert Ford, former US ambassador to Algeria and Syria, Paul Salem, vice-president for policy and research at the Middle East Institute, and Randa Slim, director for Track II initiatives at MEI.
The panel focused on long-term forces and factors in the Middle East and North Africa. Cole drew attention to the youth bulge, low investment, lack of jobs, and the effects of climate change on the region. The population is growing as resources are shrinking. Dwindling water supplies will create immense social pressures, and may lead to mass migrations and regional tensions, including over water supplies. Sea level rises will inundate the low-lying plains in southern Iraq, areas of the Nile Delta, and other inhabited areas.
This will happen as hydrocarbon production levels off and even declines, squeezing countries made rich by petrodollars. The region needs sustainable development, Cole underlined, which means a shift towards solar and wind power and a big increase in technological capacity.
Agreeing on the importance of resource and economic constraints, Salem underlined the collapse of already weak and corrupt institutions in Syria, Iraq, Libya and Yemen. With the failure of the Arab uprisings in these countries, the region has lost its sense of direction, as well as any semblance of regional governance. There is no real alternative to accountable, inclusive and ultimately democratic governance, but it is difficult to see how the region will get there from the disorder into which it has fallen. It needs high-value exports that it is unable to produce today.
The currently oil-rich region must adapt now, before it is left without options. Ford predicts that the Middle East will become a major food-importing region. To generate the revenue needed to pay for this food, the region will need to attract investment. Businesses will want to see fair and honest rule of law before sinking money into the region. Failing to develop economies producing more than commodities risks condemning the region to an impoverished and unstable future.
The panel considered the role of religion in the future of the Middle East, but it said notably little about sectarian or ethnic strife, which is more symptom than cause. Ford hopes that Islamists will be pulled towards the center of the political spectrum, as political Islam cannot provide the answers to all the socio-economic problems faced today. But this only applies to those Islamists actively engaging within the political system. There will be no single solution. With the region in such a dramatic state of flux, Salem cautions that there is a developing contest for defining the region’s cultural identity. Sheikhs, militias, and jihadists are competing to define the future of society and culture in the Middle East. The cacophony risks drowning out more moderate reformers and democrats.
Slim underlined the importance of Iran’s trajectory for the region as a whole. Whether a nuclear deal is reached and the choices Tehran makes about support for its allies in Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, Bahrain and Palestine will affect Iran’s relations with its neighbors in the Gulf and with the West. There is great potential for improvement, but also serious risk of deterioration if those in Tehran who want a nuclear deal have to pay for it by giving others a free rein to do what they want regionally.
The West must engage better in the battle for hearts and minds. For Slim, the key battle ground is online and across smart phones. ISIS releases thousands of propagandistic tweets, videos and online messages every day. Jabhat al-Nusra has a similarly slick media operation. Media literacy in the Arab world is high. The West should not let extremists be the only voice in cyberspace. Twitter and Facebook are theatres in the war against violent doctrines just as much as Kobani.
But the ideological battle cannot be won only through convincing words and media campaigns. Robert Ford recalled the warm reception he had received at a university in Algeria, which had a link with a university in the US. The few graduating from the program had all found employment. The result was goodwill from an much wider section of the local population. Providing quality education, developing human connections , and working to build the skills that bring employment and prosperity are vital in combating ideologies that preach hatred.
The path to long-term success and stability in a region facing increasing chaos can be summed up by two 1990s political catch phases. Bill Clinton’s “it’s the economy, stupid”, and Tony Blair’s “education, education, education.” Military campaigns against threats such as ISIS may sometimes be necessary, but in the long term the region’s future will be determined by other factors: demographic and climate pressures, the search for dignity, institutional strength and economic success or failure. The US and its allies cannot determine the outcome. They can only encourage and support local actors as they seek to achieve stability and prosperity.
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Parties before people
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy hosted Adnan Kocher at a roundtable discussion on Thursday. Kocher is a senior advisor on international political affairs to Lahur Talabani, Head of the Kurdistan Intelligence Service. Kocher is also chairman of the Kurdish Cultural Center in London.
What Kocher had to say about the ongoing conflict between the Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga and Da’ish (aka ISIS) was not especially enlightening. He called, as many others have in recent months, for a stronger anti-Da’ish policy, going beyond airstrikes and supply of small arms to approved groups. Noting that the jihadis still enjoy grassroots support from local Sunnis, Kocher stressed that it is necessary to work carefully with Sunni groups to defeat Da’ish and erode its support network. He also called for empowering of local fighters – including the Kurds – to combat the so-called Islamic State on the ground.
These jejune (though not inaccurate) observations came amidst thinly veiled sniping at Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), which currently holds the most seats in the Kurdish Parliament and is led by the President of Iraqi Kurdistan, Massoud Barzani. Kocher’s affiliation is with the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), headed by Jalal Talabani (former president of Iraq), and brother of Lahur Talabani. The apparent political divisions, and implicit nepotistic factionalism within Kurdistan highlighted by Kocher over the course of the discussion was revealing of the challenges the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) faces in both its fight against Da’ish and its quest for independence.
Factionalism and nepotism among the Iraqi Kurds is nothing new. In 2009 a US report described the KDP as a family run, mafia-like organization. A quick glance at the names of those holding high office in the KRG shows the KDP dominated by the Barzani family and the PUK by the Talabani family. The two have competed with one another for years (even going to war in the Saddam Hussein era). This ongoing feuding is weakening the Kurdish position at this difficult time.
The lack of cooperation extends to the peshmerga forces. Both PUK and KDP run their own, rather like private armies. Divided chains of command as well as differing objectives and goals challenge the unity of Kurdistan’s response to Da’ish. Kocher underlined failures by the KDP peshmerga and successes by the PUK peshmerga.
Could a lack of a united framework, and even competition between the two factions, be a contributing factor in failures to push back Da’ish? In Sinjar and around Mosul the peshmerga have lost ground and continue to struggle, while Syrian Kurdish forces (YPG) have held swathes of territory in Rojava, helped defend the Yazidis in Iraq, and withstood the brunt of the jihadist war machine in the town of Kobane. This despite the fact the YPG’s parent organisation, the PYD (Democratic Union Party), is banned in Syria and has no official government authority.
Kocher also frequently referenced the lack of supplies going to the Kurdish forces. Commenting on video footage of PUK peshmerga waiting on the frontline, he drew attention to lack of combat boots, poorly made uniforms, and lack of ammunition. This is surprising. The US has been explicitly funding and supplying the peshmerga since August. Even before that, well equipped and trained peshmerga could be seen in and around Erbil (KDP territory) wearing new and well-kept uniforms.
With the division between the two major Kurdish parties and their affiliated troops, it is possible that resources, funds, and equipment are unevenly distributed. There are also vast differences in operational capabilities of different peshmerga forces, exacerbated by lack of a clear and unified command structure and leading to reductions in the combat effectiveness of the KRG. For Western governments, this makes knowing to whom weapons and funds should be sent complicated.
There are also international actors with stakes in the Kurdish political factions. In recent years, the KDP has had strong ties with Turkey. Relations between Presidents Barzani and Erdogan are cordial. The PUK is backed by Iran. Kocher tried to dispel concerns over Iran’s influence on his party, claiming that the PUK instead considers Israel a friend (without acknowledging that one can be friends with Israel and still have ties to Iran). As Iran and Turkey continue to compete through local factions, their influence in Kurdish politics further serves to divide and polarize, as the two jostle for influence.
Kurdish leaders can ill afford to be playing politics. Though Da’ish is starting to be pushed back, jihadists continue to threaten KRG interests and operate in and around its borders. The KRG is facing skyrocketing costs even as it struggles to raise revenues after months of budgetary disputes with Baghdad over Kurdistan’s oil (the latest deal was announced on Thursday).
Kurdistan has been one of the few success stories of the Middle East in the past decade. Its people have grown wealthier, its infrastructure improved, and it has enjoyed stability in a volatile region. However, much of its leadership is composed of families and their followers who are mistrustful of one another. They put their parties ahead of their people. No one would deny the bravery of the peshmerga soldiers as they fight against a better armed enemy – but the political class is letting them down.
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Partition won’t work
Yesterday Tom Ricks published at foreignpolicy.com a brief piece I wrote for him a couple of weeks ago on why partition of Iraq and Syria is a really bad idea. The basic reason is this: separation of ethnic or sectarian groups sounds good, but unless they agree on the lines of separation they will sooner or later fight over where to draw them. Agreements about lines of separation are rare. Czechs and Slovaks are the classic case. Far more often, the parties disagree.
Partition proposals don’t prevent war. They cause it.
This is especially true for Iraq and Syria.
In Iraq, there are substantial areas of relative homogeneity: most people who live in Kurdistan are Kurds, most who live in Anbar and large parts of Ninewa are Sunni, and most who live south of Baghdad are Shia. But that doesn’t mean they would agree on the lines of separation.
For Sunnis, especially for those who support restoration of the caliphate, Baghdad is vital, even though it now has a population that is majority Shia (and partly Kurd). Nor will Sunnis be pleased to see Shia walk off with the lion’s share of Iraq’s massive oil reserves, which lie in the south, or Kurds walk off with much of the rest, which lies in Kurdish-controlled Kirkuk and other so-called disputed territories. Anbar’s natural gas will be little comfort, as it will take years to develop it and build pipelines to ship it out. Partition of Iraq will lead to a war likely to last a decade or more, as Sunnis seek to recover territory they regard as their own. Any guess about which Sunnis, moderates or extremists, will lead that fight?
The situation is even more complicated in Syria, where the same degree of ethnic and sectarian separation does not exist. There are islands of minorities (Kurds, Druze, Christian, Shia and other) spread out in an arc of mostly Sunnis extending from the southern border with Jordan and Israel, through Damascus, Homs and Aleppo to the north and along the Turkish to the Iraqi border. Kurds are not concentrated in one area, and only one of the three areas where they live is contiguous with Iraqi Kurdistan. Alawites are concentrated in the west along the Mediterranean coast, where they are not the majority in many communities, and inland in Damascus, where they are also not the majority.
Division of Syria along ethnic and sectarian lines would therefore mean moving millions of people, in addition to the half of the population that has already been displaced. There is really no way to do that except by force.
Let’s say however that ISIS succeeds in continuing to dominate the Sunni-majority parts of eastern Syria and western Iraq. Should the international community accede to that and hope the jihadists can be contained? Fat chance. They would continue to fight at least for Damascus and Baghdad, which are the historic capitals of the caliphate. And in the meanwhile they would provide safe haven for international terrorists like Khorasan, the Al Qaeda affiliate embedded for now with Jabhat al Nusra, which has just reached an accommodation with the Islamic State.
But, you might ask, aren’t the existing borders artificial? Yes, they are, but it is instructive that they were not established by Sykes and Picot, who are usually cited as the culprits. The map they signed in 1916 had Mosul in the French zone (which is the ancestor of Syria), not the British (which is the ancestor of Iraq):
When ISIS captured Mosul, it was not destroying the Sykes/Picot division but restoring it, in part. The lines we attribute to Sykes and Picot today were drawn in 1923, by the Treaty of Lausanne, though Mosul’s fate was still uncertain (and was supposed to be determined by the League of Nations). But the British were already there and kept it.
The virtue of the existing lines is just that: they exist. Moving them necessarily creates winners and losers. If the losers are not happy with the result, they will fight. Partition won’t work.
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Recalibration
The Administration is finally having another look at its Syria strategy. A reexamination is overdue. While coalition forces have been attacking the Islamic State (ISIS), the Syrian regime has focused its remaining firepower against relatively moderate forces, especially in Aleppo and surrounding areas. The net result is not good: Kurdish forces that in the past have supported the Assad regime have gained ground in the Kobane, on the Turkish border, while the relative moderates have been losing ground farther west. Now UN envoy Stefano De Mistura is proposing a ceasefire in Aleppo, hoping to prevent catastrophe there.
It has become all too apparent that
- The moderate forces need more help if they are going to be able to hold on to significant territory in Syria;
- Assad benefits from the current coalition attacks on IS since they weaken his strongest opponent, allow him to concentrate against moderate forces, and strengthen Kurds who have been unwilling to attack the regime.
President Obama has offered to cooperate with Iran in Syria against ISIS once a nuclear deal is done, but there is no sign Iran is prepared to abandon Assad. Such cooperation would offend the majority Sunni population in Syria and guarantee more recruits for ISIS.
Bottom line: we are getting nowhere fast in Syria.
Things aren’t much better in Iraq, where ISIS is consolidating control over territory. Prime Minister Haider al Abadi has been busy firing military commanders and installing new ones, but it is far from clear whether his choices will be any more effective on the battlefield than former Prime Minister Maliki’s were. Abadi has managed to appoint Defense and Interior ministers, but creation of the provincially-based National Guard is still stalled in parliament. Next spring is the current best hope for an Iraqi offensive against ISIS.
The Americans need to find a better approach. Refocusing coalition attacks at least in part on the Assad regime is one possibility, but there are limits. Doing too much in that direction risks collapsing the Syrian state and opening the way for an IS takeover, even in Damascus. That is something we should want to prevent, not cause.
Another possibility would be taking the Turks up on their favorite proposition: creation of one or more liberated areas inside Syria, protected from air and artillery attacks as best can be done by coalition aircraft. The Syrian Opposition Coalition (SOC) and its Interim Government (SIG) could then move into those areas and begin governing, creating an alternative to fleeing the country for thousands of desperate Syrians. Prime candidates for liberated areas would be in the north, along the Turkish border, and in the south, along the ceasefire line with Israel and the border with Jordan. These areas would then constitute buffer zones protecting key coalition partners from ISIS incursions.
This is essentially what the US did for the Kurds in northern Iraq under Saddam Hussein. That experiment was eventually successful in creating an area of relative stability and half-decent governance. It also of course created the pre-conditions for what may eventually be secession of Iraqi Kurdistan from Iraq. That would also be a risk of creating a liberated area in Syria. It would therefore best be done with boundaries not determined by ethnic or sectarian lines, which is easy enough in Syria because the population in most areas is even today quite mixed, at least at the provincial level. Maintaining a diverse Syrian polity is vital to ensuring that the country remains whole.
Some will ask why we should worry about partition. The short answer is this: even Syrians who might want to separate won’t agree with their adversaries on the lines along which separation should occur. There has been much blather about a possible Alawite state in western Syria, along the Mediterranean coast. But much of the population that lives there is Sunni, and there is a large population of Alawites in Damascus. Those who advocate partition are advocating massive population movements that could only be accomplished by violent means.
There are no good options in Syria, but recalibration to undermine the Assad regime and provide stronger support to the moderate opposition, including in moving it into Syria, would be better than what we are doing now.
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Peace picks November 10-14
- Ukraine, Russia and the West—The Way Forward Monday 10 | 9:00 am – 4:00 pm Georgetown University; Copley Formal Lounge, 37 St NW and O St NW, Washington DC REGISTER TO ATTEND Georgetown University is holding a conference to take stock of Ukraine’s domestic situation, its relations with the West and with Russia and to discuss how the crisis might be dealt with going forward. Speakers include Stephen Kotkin, Andreas Umland, Anders Aslund, Olexyi Horan, Eric Rubin, and Matthew Sagers.
- Gaza from the Ground Monday 10 | 9:30 am – 11:00 am New America Foundation; 1899 L St, Suite 400, Washington DC REGISTER TO ATTEND New America and the Foundation for Middle East Peace will hold a conversation with Alice Rothchild, author of On the Brink: Israel and Palestine on the Eve of the 2014 Gaza Invasion, and New America Jacobs Foundation Fellow Brian K. Barber, who has been researching the dynamics of Palestinian families since the First Intifada, as they discuss their recent reporting trips to Gaza and the impact of conflict from the ground. The discussion will be moderated by journalist Samer Badawi, who covered the latest round of conflict, Operation Protective Edge, for +972 Magazine.
- Post-ISIS Iraq: Challenges and Prospects Monday 10 | 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies; Rome Building, 1619 Massachusetts Ave NW, Washington DC REGISTER TO ATTEND Abbas Kadhim, fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute, will discuss this topic.
- The Ebola Crisis: U.S. Leadership and International Response Wednesday 12 | 3:30 pm – 5:30 pm Brookings Institution; 1775 Massachusetts Ave NW, Washington DC REGISTER TO ATTEND Brookings will host a discussion on the current state of the Ebola crisis, featuring a conversation with USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah, who will detail his recent trip to West Africa and the U.S. response to the crisis. Brookings President Strobe Talbott will moderate the discussion. Shah will also discuss USAID’s new effort, “Fighting Ebola: A Grand Challenge for Development,” aimed at generating new ideas to fight Ebola. This discussion will then be followed by a panel discussion with Brookings Senior Fellows Elizabeth Ferris, Amadou Sy, and Michael O’Hanlon, who will outline the humanitarian, economic, political and security dimensions of the crisis.
- 4th Annual Walter Roberts Lecture with Ambassador Robert S. Ford Wednesday 12 | 6:00 pm – 7:30 pm Elliott School of International Affairs; 1957 E St NW, Washington DC REGISTER TO ATTEND Frank Sesno, director of the School of Media and Public Affairs, will hold a conversation with Ambassador Robert Ford about the current crises in Syria and Iraq, the Obama Administration’s strategy for fighting terrorism in the region, and the role of social media and digital diplomacy in the war with ISIS.
- Combating the ISIS Threat: A Path Forward Thursday 13 | 12:30 pm – 1:30 pm Elliott School of International Affairs; 1957 E St NW, Washington DC REGISTER TO ATTEND Stephen Biddle, former senior advisor to General Petraeus’ Central Command Assessment Team, and Marc Lynch, director of the Project on Middle East Political Science at George Washington University, will hold an in-depth discussion of the Obama administration’s current strategy toward the ISIS threat, the evolving security situation on the ground in Syria and Iraq, and next steps for regional and global stakeholders.
- After the Gaza Conflict: Hamas’ Goals, Military Capabilities, and Financial Networks Friday 14 | 11:00 am – 1:00 pm Foundation for Defense of Democracies; Russell Senate Office Building, Constitution Ave and 1st St NE, Kennedy Caucus Room REGISTER TO ATTEND FDD will be holding a panel discussion and conversation to discuss the capabilities of Hamas two months after the ceasefire with Israel. The panel will include Matthew Levitt, director of The Washington Institute’s Stein Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence, Dan Moger, former Assistant Director in the Treasury’s Office of Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes, Jonathan Schanzer, Vice President for Research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Samuel Tadros, Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom, and Jeffrey White, defense fellow at The Washington Institute. Registration will begin at 10:45 am | Lunch will be served. Advance RSVP and confirmation required.
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ISIS strained
The ISIS leadership may at last be beginning to feel the pinch of concerted international efforts against it, both militarily and through diplomatic channels. It seems that the group is facing increasing resistance in the territories it holds: last week it executed fifty Sunni tribesmen and women in a mass killing in al-Anbar province. Meanwhile the Iraqi government claims that 322 tribesmen have been executed in recent days in the north-west provinces of the country.
Losing the tacit support of the Iraqi Sunni tribes would be devastating to the Islamic State. They have been able to take and hold swathes of territory in Anbar province and around Mosul at least in part because of the enmity felt by Sunnis in the north toward the Shi’ite dominated government of Nouri al-Maliki, and the fury in response to their lands effectively becoming occupied by a Shi’ite army comprising soldiers almost entirely from another part of the country. One expert speaking in Washington last week compared the Iraqi army mission in the north to a foreign occupation, noting the difference in religion, ethnicity, and even dialect between the soldiers and civilians.
The docility of the tribes has made administering and holding captured territory much easier for ISIS. It allows resources to be allocated to keeping the pressure on Baghdad, while continuing the siege on Kobani and making advances on Aleppo. If ISIS begins to face trouble in its ‘heartland’ it will find it much harder to maintain its momentum and keep lines of supply and reinforcement open.
In places that momentum is already being halted. It has suffered (and is continuing to suffer) a setback in Kobani, which has turned into a symbolic fight. The town is not strategically important in military terms, but by inflicting defeat after defeat on the ISIS war machine the Kurds (and their western allies) have shown the Middle East that Islamic State is neither invincible nor unstoppable. The jihadis’ determination to not lose the fight for Kobani has dictated the coalition’s strategy in the area: jihadi fighters are concentrating themselves in a tiny area where normally they are dispersed. This makes airstrikes much more devastating. It seems hard to believe that not taking Kobani would be a strategic disaster for ISIS in military terms. However, by continuing to concentrate their forces, ISIS has shown a ‘revealed preference’. It would rather suffer a pyrrhic victory than lose the territory but preserve its military strength.
The preference is understandable. Such a high profile loss will show both potential recruits and sympathizers that an Islamic State victory is not guaranteed. Perhaps more importantly, it will demonstrate to those living inside of the self-proclaimed Caliphate that ISIS might not be here to stay after all.
This comes back to the Sunni tribes. The timing of the Islamic State’s mass executions in Anbar, coinciding as it does with a loss of momentum, points to two possibilities. Either members of the Sunni tribes have realized that ISIS is on the back foot and have become more active in resisting, or the leadership of the Islamic State is afraid they might begin resisting and is attempting to cow any dissent. They have good reason to be afraid: back in 2006 the Sahwa (Awakening) movement pushed al-Qaeda out of Anbar. A second awakening could spell the end of the Islamic State as a viable force in Iraq. By executing tribesmen, ISIS may be risking pushing Sunnis further towards active resistance.
It is clear that cracks are now appearing on the inside of the Caliphate. Now is the time to exploit those cracks to the full. Close support for local forces, both those fighting the jihadis and those living in occupied territory, combined with ongoing military action by the coalition might turn the tide. Fighting the Islamic State can never just be about number of bombs dropped and militants killed. Local peoples must be helped, both to oust the extremists and to rebuild a stable state. Let us hope that moving past the midterms a decisive strategy will be implemented.
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